Simply writing about faith, family, and life stories.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I’m back. Not in black. Just back. I have a red shirt on tonight. How are you? I missed you. We need to catch up. Our tree is super droopy and tired. So are we. Here are a few of my holiday favorites…

Scrooge Guinea Pigs. Those stinky little jokers pulled their tiny stockings into their cage to have a little chew session while we were all at work/school. Then they peed on them. Nasty. Pigs. Oh, you nasty pig, oh you nasty pig!They still got a little treat for Christmas. We’re cool like that. One time when I first moved back to America after living overseas for 5 years, I judged all of you for getting your pets something for Christmas. I laughed an evil condescending laugh at all the folks in the pet aisle picking out stocking stuffers. That’s over now. I’m one of you. 🙂 Oh, and I washed the pee stockings. They are good as new!

Puzzles. I kind of hate puzzles but I kind of like doing them with my family at Christmas. When you’re tired during the holidays, you probably just go to sleep. We don’t. We stay up with a million people working a horrid 1000 piece Christmas puzzle. Or play games. All sorts.

Cousins all together for the holidays. We could’ve played Twister or watched a movie which would be totally fun. Instead, we gathered spotlights, all the kids bundled up and jumped in the back of the truck, and we drove them out to the middle of the ranch by the back windmill and left them to find their way back to the barn. It was quite awesome. They like to call it running man. They formed their own teams and ran. We gave them 3 minutes and then started driving around trying to spot them with our lights. My sister in law Beth started tracking her boys with their phone finder. It was cold that night. Very. We fluctuated between wondering if they were cold and trying to catch them. We didn’t catch any of them! Plus the girls team won. But, they ride horses all over the place so they had a big advantage.

Butter. How can you do without it during the holidays? If you need some, Please go to my mother-in-law’s home during the holidays. She has more butter than Walmart. There is a lot of cooking, baking, and butter-spreading apparently. Oh, and I looked in this fridge tonight and all the butter is gone!

5. Sheep. I looked down on Christmas morning and realized I had sheep poop on my pajama t-shirt. Probably you would change. I did eventually. This is the year we got a sheep for Christmas. My daughter, Lydia, asked for a real sheep, and for a few reasons we thought we could use sheep. Or two. And then the one we bought for her was pregnant. Christmas Eve, my husband and Maile our second daughter went to pick up the sheep from my brother-in-law’s barn, and Lydia’s sheep had just given birth to two little lambs. Christmas morning, I brought in one of the lambs to show her, and her smile was so bright and shiny! It was one of the best surprises ever! It was worth the poop shirt. Even if I did cook breakfast in that shirt unaware and didn’t even notice it until I was helping with some Legos. Hey, the other sheep is due in March in case you were wondering. It is the gift that keeps on giving! 6. Christmas cards. Yours. Not mine. I don’t like mine at all; it is dark and unclear and perhaps you can’t really read any of the writing. I don’t know what you would do, but I sent mine anyways even in spite of some the very awesome cards I received. My friend Marti won the card contest btw. I am the loser, and I am totally fine with that.
7. Arena football. There were several games. I don’t know who won. Obviously I didn’t play. 8. Snicker-loaf. Anna and I found it and couldn’t pass it up. It was the biggest Snickers I ever saw. We shared. It was like loaves and fishes of Snickers. It fed a lot of people. 9. Awkward interactions. We had a lot of new girlfriends and boyfriends at my family’s Christmas. It is a little painful to watch them interact and try hard and feel weird. Hellos and goodbyes are particularly awkward. You can see it in them. Do I go around and say goodbye to all 20 of them or just slip out the door? Do I hug or shake hands? Do I talk a lot or keep quiet? Phew. I was glad it wasn’t me, but I’ve been there! Most of us have. That’s why we feel the pit in our stomach for their awkwardness. I’d like to give a big round of applause for all the new people at our family Christmas for their courage and bravery and awkwardness. 🙂

10. Quiet. Guess where it was most quiet for me today? At Walmart. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. My sister in law Mattea told me why. No one has any more money to spend. The End.

Happy getting back to your normal. Share your favorites here if you want, but you probably don’t have time. That’s cool. Hey—Grand Tetons Part 3 to come this week! Plus I will do my annual New Years Resolution post. You can read my past ones here and here.